It identifies Stratton as a survivor of the attack that sank the ship. It is about three feet tall, with a carved island figure on top and the silhouette of a Hawaiian warrior on a plaque. The day after the attack, President Franklin D . He eases the truck out of the carport, far enough to show it off. The guns used the same type of control mechanisms Bruner had mastered on the Arizona. Chile. Langdell knew Libby was friends with a skater in the Ice Follies, which was summering in San Francisco. Whale Shark (Rhincodon typus) The whale shark is the largest shark species, and also the biggest fish species in the world. "When they dropped that bomb that made our ammunition explode, it dang near broke the ship in two, so we couldn't go anywhere forward of that," he says. He has met many of his old friends and shipmates. Nightmares invade his sleep when he remembers those final moments. In 1967, Conter retired from the Navy. He will tell his story to people he knows well and trusts, but he is 93 and the details are fading from his memory. He ran to the anti-aircraft battery, his battle station, but there was no ammunition ready. Langdell was discharged at the war's end and returned to Massachusetts, where his wife, Libby, waited. the young man asked. He was active in those groups for many years, serving as president of one devoted to the Arizona. Part of his shoulder was blown off. Inside, he found broken bottles scattered in a soggy soup of booze and cardboard. High winds could slam one ship into the other and sink one or both of the vessels. For years, Stratton wore the scars from the Arizona without talking about them much. "Are there any officers from the Arizona here?" '", "Some things," he says, "you don't know about what they'll mean until years later.". He had taken a bullet to the back of his leg as he was climbing the tower, but the burns were far worse. "The lesson I've learned from that experience is that the 1,177 men entombed on the ship right now will never know the love of a wife or the joy of grandchildren," he said. All those sailors from all those places and here was a guy who was practically a neighbor. On the 70thanniversary of the attack, the men had been brought to the state capitol to receive new honors. Farther down the paneled wall hangs a painting of the USS Arizona, the battleship Navy recruit Potts boarded in December 1939. He half-swam, half-walked the 70 yards to Ford Island and manned a mounted machine gun. "Not Navy ships, other ships. Did he know anything about meteorology? On Veteran's Day, he participated once more in a parade through Marysville, the next town over from Yuba City. Thickets of tangled shrubs and rows of trees are visible from his window. Haerry felt the entire ship life out of the water. Many places around the world are named for a stand-out feature, and Pearl Harbor is no different. five letter words with l; jaiswal surname caste; pros and cons of herzberg theory; sechrest funeral home obituaries; curious george stuffed animal 1975; cornerstone staffing application 0 He first visited the Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor on the 50thanniversary of the attack and has returned since. It had been shortly after midnight when their ship, the USS Indianapolis, was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine in the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean, some 500 miles east of the . ("Two of us with the same rank were up for the same kind of job," he said. That caught the lieutenant colonel's interest. "When we got up into the Aleutians, we started banging on the Japanese that had already landed," Bruner said. He was also interviewing a Japanese pilot named Zenji Abe, a pilot who had taken part in the raid on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The lead-up to the Pearl Harbor attack. "We had to have two crews, a regular crew and a stand-by crew lined up waiting," Bruner said. "He's there for me. He tried not to remember the days after the attack. He still tools around town in the truck, but it's a classic now, so he drives it almost as often to car shows. "I got the lay a wreath in front of the names of the fallen," he says quietly. alain picard wife / ap calculus bc multiple choice / did sharks eat pearl harbor victims. Then we got hit.". He's not so fond of the crowds around Honolulu and doesn't plan to go back. He looked for what he called medium spacing. Sometimes, Japanese pilots attended memorial ceremonies and some of the other survivors would shake their hands. But Hetrick couldn't find work, so inside of six months, he signed up for the Navy Reserve. He resumed one of his old jobs from the Arizona, piloting motor launches from the receiving station out to the Navy ships. The Stratton men have taken up a more personal cause. They could ride to the mainland then and leave for Florida. "Well, I'd brushed enough paint on that damn ship, I figured I could do it," he says. They offered to perform at a gathering of Utah survivors. "I went and found the head guy and by the time I got through explaining things to him," Potts says, "my name was never on that list again.". Helpless, I watched your bomb sink the Arizona in nine minutes.". The first couple of trips back to Hawaii were difficult. One morning, he was at his desk, catching up on paperwork, when he heard a vehicle screech to a halt outside. The Coghlan supported Army landings and Navy bombing runs. did sharks eat pearl harbor victims. "But it was a lot better than being shot at.". You can't leave the Navy.". Langdell had borrowed a car, a Dusenburg, for the honeymoon. Hetrick was still just 21 by then, but a seasoned sailor who shared little in common with the 17-year-old kid who left high school and joined the Navy on his parents' signature. "That lumber was so damn green then, we used to kid we had to shoot the squirrels out of it.". The nurse who checks in on him regularly likes Haerry. "I really miss it.". Tall pines tower over the house. I'd been told things like that before. He remembers the crewman trying to climb a ladder to escape through a hatchway on the deck. "That's what I want to remember. By the time the woman from Illinois found him, he was ready to face his past. He and Evelyn had their first son, Ray, Jr., in 1947. He had escaped the USS Arizona, the battleship whose losses surpassed any other. The day after, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared it "a date which will live in infamy," and Congress . "We're right-arm rates." 12/28/2016. When he dies, his remains will be interred under the No. Conter was talking about survival, about coming back alive. He tried to keep his thoughts on the work in the office. "The station wagon was for the captains of some of the ships that would come in," he said. "No one knew where the hell I was," Bruner says. With eyes too close or two far apart, a crewman could deliver faulty readings. It scared him a little. As he talks about Pearl Harbor again, other memories surface. Almost imperceptibly, he sways. They went out for coffee afterward. The ship accompanied General Douglas MacArthur to the Philippines and was anchored in the harbor off Nagasaki, Japan, when the second atomic bomb exploded. did sharks eat pearl harbor victims. It never returned, crippled in the Battle of the Coral Sea and scuttled by the Navy to keep the enemy from salvaging her. "They paid me by the day," he said. Their habitats include saltwater and freshwater alike. Cook made it off alive. The telegram, which misspelled Conter's last name, promises further information and asks his family not to divulge Conter's posting. Within a day or two, someone came into the ward and said a few of the wounded would be sent to California. The survivors' group that found him was right, he has concluded: The stories of the Arizona should not die with the men who lived them. The ones after that were, too. "When I got back home, my doctors here wanted to know about my medical background," Bruner said. I had to take them to the parties and sit there until it was over.". He asked if Jeanne could come with him. He stayed on the 17thfloor of a hotel on Waikiki Beach. "We're were out and around. The planes could fly at low altitudes, then buzz upward for a bombing run, confounding enemy gunners trying to calculate speed and distance. Conter and his buddy waited for new instructions, but heard nothing. He climbed aboard the ship, ducking to avoid bullets from the gunner planes. a director yelled. Williams was in the Arizona's band. It fit in that location. Posted by ; royal canin yorkie dog food reviews; parkland psychiatric hospital dallas, tx . Keeping the memories alive. A moment passes. By April 1940, the Navy seemed like a good idea and by summer, he was on board the Arizona, stationed at Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. dwayne johnson rock foundation contact. The crews learned the routines of the Japanese ships. In the years after, he became active in survivors' groups and started going back to Pearl Harbor more often. "We don't think you'd make it. They met at a dance at the YWCA on North State Street. I think that's what kept me living to this day.". Anything you choose is fine. Bruner was at his battle station in an anti-aircraft gun director, a metal box on the forward mast of the Arizona, when an armor-piercing bomb ignited the ship's powder magazine. He wrote a training manual whose precepts the Navy still follows. Answer: Yes- in 1945, after the USS Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese torpedo. queensland figure skating. We all have to remember that they did not die in vain.". Many veterans who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor have met over the years and become friends, particularly at the annual Dec. 7 gatherings at the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. Hetrick earned a Purple Heart for wounds during one of the bombing raids. He clears his throat. Potts was touched. For 30 years, Lauren Bruner punched a clock at a manufacturing plant south of Los Angeles, a World War II veteran in a landscape crawling with them. Donald Stratton completed the paperwork for a concealed weapons permit at the El Paso County Sheriff's Office and approached the counter to submit fingerprints. "This shows where all the ships were," he says, pointing at a map depicting Pearl Harbor on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. Their skin charred and falling off, the men crawled down the line to the Vestal. They called the Marines out with rifles to protect the plane and the guys while we hauled it in.". Their ordeal . His new employer manufactured industrial refrigeration units. 1914-1941:The mightiest ship at sea | Dec. 7, 1941: The attack that changed the world| Documentary: 'Witness to Infamy' | 2014: The final toast. "We didn't hear much from the outside at first," Hetrick said. He thinks back. Bruner laughs as he remembers the conversation. Ke awa lau o Puuloa, the bay and lochs that make up the complex most people know simply as Pearl Harbor, was once the home of the guardian sharks, Kaahuphau and her brother Kahiuk. He started on a small station, playing organ music. Today, he is one of nine remaining survivors from the mighty battleship. Sailors jumped into fires to escape sinking vessels. war. And it holds deep meaning for Potts, even though he did nothing to win it. He's never been back. This day, which marks the attack on Pearl Harbor, has come to be known as the "Day of Infamy" (derived from President Franklin D. Roosevelt's speech the day after the attack). Before the big battleship could leave Puget Sound, Anderson volunteered for another mission, joining the small Asiatic Fleet along the coast of China. what is florentine milan straw. Nope. When she says anything, I tell her I'm catching up from the war.". "So that's what we did," he says, staring out at the harbor nearly seven decades later. . "This went on for four straight hours. Lonnie and Marietta Cook met in Morris after the war, but the road to their home here today winds thousands of miles across the country. Fire had blackened much of the structure still visible. Here's what he revealed: The USS Arizona (BB-39) burns after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. I even had a couple of dates with girls.". On the morning of May 8, the fighting intensified as American aircraft tried to turn back the enemy planes. The steeple clock chimed and a statue of an angel wielding a sword emerged from an alcove and knocked Anderson off the steeple. "He'd always have to be prompted.". "I'd already sent word, even before the first one got there," he says. Kuwait. He got to know Alan Ladd, who had starred in a series of war movies. Cook worked in California, mostly welding jobs, until the union he belonged to called a strike. Why not try radio? During the conference, the Pringle sailed into the Mediterranean Sea and anchored in a river. Redfish. UPDATE:Joe Langdell diedin February 2015, months after this report. Finally, they made their way to Salinas, Calif., just inland from Monterey on the central coast. By the time they were back, the icicles were forming again and two more guys would go out.". "Cut!" Servicemembers stationed in Hawaii took care of the memorial during the 2013 government shutdown: Servicemembers stationed in Hawaii treat Pearl Harbor as a living . He left home at 5 every morning and took a ferry from Jamestown to the Navy base. "I'd never seen so many guys with so much guts," he said. It was constructed to comply with the 1922 Washington Naval . Military Casualties. And in the back corner, a real trophy. The Tennessee took hits in the attack, but two of the armor piercing bombs, the kind that sunk the Arizona, failed to detonate. Bruner keeps mementos of his time on the Arizona in the sitting room. On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The band would cover all expenses for him and Doris. Conter's crews flew missions across the South Pacific: New Guinea, Borneo, New Britain, the coast off Perth, Australia. A second telegram, dated Jan. 6 reported that Conter was alive and would contact his family. Once a shark finds its prey, it needs to decide on whether to eat or not based on smell and appearance. Schenkelberg was no stranger to hardships . Their backs are gray, blue, or brown in color and covered with regularly arranged light spots. "I wasn't going out there. It's in good shape for a paper.". Jack shrugged. On the other end of the line is an old shipmate from the USS Saratoga, the aircraft carrier where Hetrick worked as a mechanic through most of World War II. And he keeps it loaded. Smoke rises from the battleship USS Arizona as it sinks . "Sometimes they'd get shooting at you and you'd look at the shells and they looked like they were going to hit you. The flare exploded and started a fire, which forced the plane into the water. He went to work as a junior accountant for a prominent Boston firm. I don't think sharks go that far. As far he was concerned he was saving lives.". Not war stories, usually, not unless one of them has had it out with a doctor or a pushy clerk. His kids and grandkids. As his stint was about to end, the Navy decided to transfer him back to Pearl Harbor. Stratton hesitated, then confirmed her suspicion. A few weeks later, Conter and his buddy passed a flight test at sea and on Nov. 1, they got their orders: Report to Navy flight school in Pensacola, Fla. Two weeks later, the Arizona's captain called the two sailors in and told them the ship was headed back to Long Beach in early December. ages 2, 3 and 8, together with a 14-year-old cousin . That didn't last long and he headed back to Morris, where he met Marietta. Hetrick recovered. "I've gotten letters from some of the officer candidates who had my father as an instructor," Ray Jr. says. I couldn't.". After that, he steamed north to Kodiak, Alaska, where other Navy ships were trying to turn back Japanese inroads throughout the strategically important Aleutian Islands. And he still likes to talk about that other young fellow from Oklahoma, the one who didn't make it home. One day, he stopped for coffee at the Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood. "We were told to watch out for them, these guys were assassins," Anderson said. He returned after the war to his home along the railway in eastern Oklahoma. "You either had a nice place aboard a ship and were high and dry or you didn't have anything," he reasoned. ", "I was," Anderson said. A stunt coordinator helped pull Anderson from the pile of cigarette crates that had broken his fall. Squid. He can't relive those images anymore. The new shoes he left on the deck of the sinking ship, the ones he intended to retrieve later. But he didn't want to start his civilian life in the brig, so he left it in Honolulu. Five years ago, Haerry moved into a nursing home, He stays in a room on the second floor. he said. He returned to Oklahoma again and started his own business, outfitting a one-ton Ford pickup with a winch and other equipment that let him work the oil fields. He could see the band was sincere. Three days had passed since Japanese bombers had punched a fiery hole in the Navy's Pacific fleet. Haerry had made two runs to shore on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. He hasn't hunted in a while, though he still reloads his own ammunition on a garage workbench. A year after World War II ended, Haerry went home for a while and married a girl he'd met not long before. Hetrick shrugs, trying to get comfortable in the recliner. Before the attack, many Americans were reluctant to become involved in the war in Europe. Tensions between Japan and the U.S. simmered throughout the early 20th century and came to a boil in the 1930s as Japan attempted to conquer China, even . ", "Baloney," Conter replied. Pearl Harbor was the most important American . He asked what the fellow did. He grew up in New Jersey and after high school, enrolled at MIT in Boston. That led to a job in Roswell, the Sagebrush Serenade and Elvis Presley. Marietta shakes her head. In 1971, Stratton was working long hours with a diving outfit on a nuclear power plant project not far from Santa Barbara. Among his responsibilities was overseeing the naval officers' clubs in the area. "Never heard of it.". "It was boring," Potts says. Before the year was out, Cook was sent to gunnery school in Washington, D.C., and to the South Boston Navy Yard, where he joined the new destroyer Pringle on its shakedown cruise. That was the way it was.". "They tried to jump off. The men stayed afloat until another plane saw the burning wreckage and tossed out a life raft. But one day and one place in Cook's 94 years seem to embody all the rest, the day in December 1941 when the young sailor from Oklahoma escaped the ship that sent America to war. sinastria di coppia karmica calcolo; quincy homeless shelter; plastic bags for cleaning oven racks; claudia procula death; farm jobs in vermont with housing Mess hall duty. View of "Battleship Row" during or . He settled in Palm Springs and built a career as a real estate developer, buying up land for commercial and residential projects. They spoil their granddaughters and can now move on to a new great-granddaughter. Whale sharks can grow to 65 feet in length and weigh up to 75,000 pounds. The primer went in last, before the end of the gun was sealed shut. And my co-pilot, Lou Conter, saved my life. He watched the band perform and stood as a survivor of the Arizona, one of the sailors who lived. The buddy wasn't home, but his son-in-law answered. By winter, temperatures plunged below zero. They found a way to take prints from the edges of his fingers, enough to satisfy the law. Aviators most often arose from left-arm rates. For some reason I had always thought that the titanic had gone down way farther North. "I left them there and hoped to get them back," he says. At 100, he is the oldest. Only 335 men survived the bombing of the USS Arizona, the mighty battleship whose loss at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, inspired a nation to go to war. The tender didn't want to be tied to the larger ship when the worst of the storm blew through. He touches the diving helmet. And he was allowed to visit a part of the Arizona few people ever see. -Ryan Dutcher. But he clutches the cap and puts it on as he sits in an easy chair by the window. You have a great voice, he was told. Sailors found food and shelter wherever they could. Hetrick still likes to talk about the new shoes he bought the day before the attack in Honolulu. "It ain't worth a damn if it ain't loaded," he says. Someone from the bureau had been asking questions. "I don't think we'll ever be able to swim to shore. By 1941, he worked the cranes on the ship, a job that entailed retrieving the Arizona's small seaplanes after they landed on the water. The California was way down here. He visited the memorial and was relieved to see the builders got it right. The Lexington sailed out of Pearl Harbor not long after. The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, just before 8:00 a.m. (local time) on Sunday, December 7, 1941. "OK," Bruner said. The United States was a neutral country at the time; the attack led to its formal entry into World War II the next day. But the war was over. The parties sometimes dragged into the early morning hours. "It just didn't appeal to me to bring it up," he says. "In the service, if you didn't use nasty words, you weren't a good sailor.". He told Ray about the plans to honor Pearl Harbor survivors at the statehouse. He felt a tap on his shoulder. I said, 'You send her over, I'll re-enlist.' More than 20 years earlier, he had earned his real estate license in California and had maintained it. The report said most of the guys in the anti-aircraft batteries, where Jake fought, were shot down early in the assault. Photographs. Anderson smiled. The only question was how Langdell would send Libby word about his arrival from Pearl Harbor. Over the course of nearly two hours during the morning of December 7th, 1941, a fleet of Japanese fighters and bombers assaulted the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in hopes of crippling the US Navy for the duration of World War II. The Navy wanted to keep him in Idaho, working with new recruits at a boot camp, but he pushed for a seagoing assignment and wound up on the destroyer USS Stack as a gunner's mate. It was the first time Randy, his son, had seen his father cry. Conter was stationed on the Arizona at Pearl Harbor in September 1941, when he turned 20. His fingers were almost smooth, lacking all but a few of the swirls that create an identity. We can't let it happen again.". Trains run close enough to hear the horns during the day, but not close enough to make them a nuisance. From Virginia, he went to Utah, to France and then to Albuquerque, where he retired in November 1961. "He remembers body parts in the water, charred burned bodies that he swam by," his son Ray, Jr., says. There's a little air bubble. I quit. Potts was working aboard an oil tanker, making short runs out of the harbor to refuel ships anchored off the coast. As anniversaries of the attack passed, Ray Jr. would asked his dad if he wanted to visit the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor. He still will not talk about it. He was in the studio on Valentine's Day 1955 when a nervous young man walked in. The story follows two lifelong friends and a beautiful nurse who are caught up in the horror of an infamous Sunday morning in 1941. He heard the same stories from his grandmother and his aunts. Never would've found it.". Anderson decided he had nothing to lose. She nods and smiles. He found a report by a gunner's mate. Libby got the message. Hotline & WhatsApp : +971556212280 | Landline : +97143873596 , +97167499398 james reynolds obituary. His younger son believes the experience changed his dad forever. A total of 2,403 Americans died in the tragic attack 80 years ago and for many families there was never closure as bodies remained unidentified or left amongst the wreckage. In World War II, he fought at Guadalcanal, in the battle of the Coral Sea, at Okinawa and Iwo Jima. "Some of the ships I was on had guys who liked to play the guitar, so I knew something about it. Bruner was burned over more than two-thirds of his body. He bought another gun in the states and he is never far from it. "I appreciate your thoughtfulness. They ran Joe and Libby Langdell's Village Mart for more than 20 years until they retired. "Through all that, I never did lose consciousness," he says. The man walked over and looked at Langdell's name tag. Bass. Langdell's ship, the USS Arizona, lay dead in the water where she sank 14 minutes into the attack. Lots of men brought home scars from World War II and Korea. "When somebody says get out of here and you're on a hundred tons of ammunition, well, you don't question it," he says. The body parts we put in pillow cases. But he is proud of his service, of the other sailors on the Arizona. "I just got discharged. Conter attended the same event and was seated next to Valerie. Stratton falls easily into the memories of his years on diving boats. He acknowledged the wreath. Conter's plane hadn't been out long in September 1943 when enemy bullets pierced one of their rear hatches and hit a parachute flare. According to the History Channel, the Arizona "continues to spill up to 9 quarts of oil into the harbor each day " and visitors often say it is as if the ship were still bleeding. "The kids coming up now have never heard of it," he says, his voice tinged with sadness and dismay. A while back, Stratton and his wife Velma retired to Yuma and lived there about 15 years. After high school, Langdell enrolled at Boston University, working nights to pay for his classes, and in 1938, he earned a degree in business administration. "We took all the bodies we could find.". Lou Conter is telling the story of the night his patrol bomber was shot down seven miles off the coast of New Guinea, dumping the seaplane's 10-man crew into the Pacific Ocean. A few incidents were possible shark bites, but shark involvement was not [] With his experience running cranes on the Arizona, Potts figures he could have landed a decent job at the Geneva Steel operation, but he didn't want to work shifts, so he worked as a carpenter again and eventually went into the used car business with a friend. "You can't get a guy hungry in three or four days," Conter says. "He called me one night and said if you won't let me come to California, I found a lady who's got a new black Buick and I'm going to move to Texas.". Updated: Dec 8, 2021 / 05:46 AM CST. In the spring of 1943, the Macdonough headed north toward the Aleutian Islands, where Japan was trying to establish strategic strongholds that could control shipping lanes and thwart allied attacks on the Japanese islands. He put the disc on a turntable and dropped the needle. The attack was devastating for the Americans, though the Japanese . They moved to Modesto, Calif., where he got a job driving a produce truck in the fruit orchards. The Americans stopped the Japanese ships and wiped out some of the top officers. The woman helped connect Bruner with other survivors from the Arizona and Pearl Harbor. The band had won a trophy in one of the competitions during their stay in Honolulu. Stratton's eyes brighten. He motions toward his gnarled ear. On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Cook was changing clothes at his locker, savoring the thought of a day in Honolulu with the $60 he'd won in a craps game the night before. Sharks hunt fish by using sensory receptors located on their sides. Someone had stacked the boxes too high and in the humid environment of the island, the cardboard had grown damp and weak. He had stopped at Pearl Harbor more than a decade earlier, on his way to a posting in Korea. Cook was discharged in 1948 in San Diego and stuck around California, where he worked as a metal finisher at Van Nuys manufacturing plant. In the late 1930s, American foreign policy in the Pacific hinged on support for China, and . Before the end of the war, he went to San Diego for gunner's mate school. By Christmas, he was in a hospital at Mare Island near San Francisco. As the ships turned around, a squadron of enemy bombers appeared. Just stories, the kind buddies tell each other. 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